Karen you made some excellent points. Women now have so many more choices. I don't think that the world is that much worst then it was say a hundred and fifty years ago. People were hanged, horse theives were shot. Women were not able to vote, there were no child labor laws, no birth control. People were less educated, slavery was allowed, medicine was incredibly barberic. I don't think people were kinder, I certaintly don't think men treated women better for they didn't have any rights back then.
Children worked on the farm and were to be seen and not heard and if your husbend beat you well that was just tough luck. There were as far as I know no laws against drinking.
If Uncle John touched you funny well there was no Oprah to talk to, no therapy to be had. A rotten tooth must have been hell. A women's montly disgusting, childbirth a trip to hell and beyond, cataracts well to bad, cancer you die, gun shot, knife wounds, broken limbs. People suffered and I think tempers flared often. Flies, ticks, lice, long hair, long dresses, no electric, having 15 kids and a two bedroom home with a dirt floor. I don't think I would be smiling much, or being happy with lice and flies bitting me when I tried to sleep and I had to get up in 4 hours and cook for 15 kids and one mean, drunk husbend.
I think life is much better now, I don't think we have more crime either I think it is just reported me. If people are crammed into tight spaces regardless of age, sex, education, health they will fight and trouble will brew. Even rats precious and kind as they are to one another will begin to fight if crowded together as I believe any animal will do.